The Moloch
by cable69
Summary: Kirk battles a fire-being, and remembers Spock. K/S. A complete one-shot.


**The Moloch**

x

… there is no sacrifice. There is a choice, and the rest falls away.

—Muriel Rukeyser

x

It is a strong, bright place, the sun. Kirk sees fire from the inside. It is a fluid prism of fluttering edges. The world licks redly out, flickering into the void of space, heating the nothing around it—making the nothing something.

The sun is near him. He turns to see a figure that makes no sense. It is not human but it is alive and organic; it is not shaped like a breathing thing but it inhales hydrogen and spits out helium, like Kirk's lungs process oxygen into carbon dioxide. There are dark orbs at the center of it, black holes of a deepness heavier than the edge of the universe.

These dark things are the sun's eyes, Kirk realizes. They are looking at him, and in more ways than he can understand.

"Give me back my ship," Kirk says to the sun. He is nothing but determination, a flame as brave and hard as the sun's own fires.

"It took very much of my energy to save your ship from the fire-beast," the sun says to Kirk, its voice like a tube in his ear that goes straight to his brain. "You will have to help me."

"Yes," says Kirk hungrily, thinking of getting back to Spock, "anything—"

x

Yesterday they play chess. The fourth light in the rec room is out, so they sit at a different table than they usually play at. The glowing strip above them shudders until Spock reaches up to correct its tune. Kirk remembers the crease in Spock's elbow: the dark hollow between sinews, where a hedge of green blossoms. He remembers the paleness of Spock's long arms.

x

"Sir," says Spock. Kirk hears the note of emphasis in Spock's tone immediately.

"Yes, Mister Spock?" he says, turning, trying to keep the urgency out of his own voice, but it is so easy for him to feed on Spock's emotions.

Spock hands him a PADD of ship's readings and his hand shakes. Kirk is in the infirmary, waiting for Bones's word on the status of his second officer, whose fall from a cliff had nearly cost him his life.

Kirk stares at the PADD. Gibberish. Biostats are—at two hundred and twenty percent? And temperature is negative Kelvin. Evidently they are flying _through_ Jupiter right now.

"What is this?" says Kirk slowly, trying to make sense of the data.

"We do not know, sir," says Spock. "We have encountered—something. Our instruments are… imprecise, as you can see… I hypothesize that the object, or life form, or… matter… that we are—experiencing—is an entirely unknown substance."

"You've checked the scanners," said Kirk, just to make sure.

"Four times," said Spock, allowing some frustration to express itself.

x

A week ago there is a long night on the bridge. Kirk feels glued to his chair. He is bone tired. It is late and the sky is not as bright as usual. The space they fly through lacks most of the usual hundreds of thousands of stars.

"Status, Mister Spock?" Kirk drones out at a half-hour interval.

"Systems normal, captain," says Spock, sounding rather bored as well. There is a silence after that, and then Kirk notices a small tapping. He turns.

"I am learning the solar system, captain," says Spock, his back still to Kirk. He seems to sense Kirk's eyes on him. He is flashing through star charts, looking at each of them for only a few seconds before sliding to the next.

"Anything interesting?" says Kirk.

"The universe itself, sir," says Spock. He glances over his shoulder, and Kirk can see existence in his eyes.

x

"Scotty's almost completely recovered," Bones says leisurely. He walks into the waiting room of the sickbay, rubbing a sonic cleansing wipe absently over his hands.

"Excellent," says Kirk, whipping around. He has been pacing since Spock left, impatiently waiting for Bones to get back. "I'm heading to the bridge. Keep me posted."

"Sure," says Bones, tossing the wipe in the incinerator. "What's happenin' now?"

"We're not sure," says Kirk, using his strongest voice. Bones seems unconcerned, which is the right way for Bones to be. There is nothing for anybody to worry about at the moment. Worrying is Kirk's job. Captaining is Kirk's job.

And as he leaves sickbay, he thinks that it is one of the only things he really has. It is not like he has Spock, really, however much he wants him.

x

A month ago Spock grabs Kirk's arm and drags him out of the way of an arrow that would have gone through his neck like it were gold leaf. In the moment it takes Kirk to regain his balance and Spock to steady him, they realize that there is another warrior lurking in the tall, gray tree above their heads. Kirk is thinking as fast as he can, and so is Spock, and they throw themselves either way, so that the warrior lands with a yell between them.

Kirk throws himself at his attacker, bringing the stringy woman to the ground. Spock, his hand coming out of nowhere, nerve pinches her, and Kirk drags her limp form up in front of him. The archers that shot at them, that were running forwards, stop completely, afraid to hurt their leader.

"Don't move, or she gets it," Kirk warns, one hand wrapped massively around her neck. He is breathing heavily and in a very bad mood. These natives were not supposed to attack. Nothing ever went right.

"Surely you would not kill an innocent woman," says Spock, only mildly concerned and not even panting, from behind him. Kirk can feel the heat of Spock's body, close to his back.

"They don't know I won't," grunts Kirk, hefting the woman's prone body so that it better covers his own. He addresses the natives. "Now, put the bows down slowly…"

As the natives cooperate, he hears Spock sigh, amused.

x

The bridge crew is worried, but none of them are saying it.

"What do we know?" Kirk asks tightly. Spock has nothing to tell him. Sulu's hands twitch on the controls.

"How close is it?" Kirk continues.

"We cannot know that either, sir," says Spock. He is calmer than Kirk has ever seen him. "All of the ship's sensors are nonfunctional. Sir, we are flying blind."

Kirk orders Chekov to polarize the viewscreen, and the apparition manifests.

Nobody screams, but it is a near thing.

x

A season ago Kirk watches as Spock's eyes rove across a guard's thick body. Spock does not know Kirk is there and Kirk wants to tell him. Kirk wants to stop this knowledge—this thing he is discovering—from going anywhere. He wants to tell Spock to be more careful. And he wants to cover his own eyes and leave Spock to it.

He wants a thousand things but he can have none of them, because he is invisible, and when one is invisible, any knowledge obtained during that state must stay invisible as well.

Kirk is hiding from the guards he has escaped from and he cannot let his position be known. And Spock, evidently, is going to deal with his guard in his own—obscene—way: Spock is on his _knees_, and Kirk is really closing his eyes now, and trying to ignore the noises the guard is making, and the noises Spock's mouth is making, and realizing that there is nothing good about this situation and that nothing he can ever say or do or think to his body is going to make a difference to the chemicals inundating his brain and telling him, _Jim, god, just go down there, just go, just _tell_ him._

x

It is a vast thing with tendrils the size of long red giants. It fits in the viewscreen because it is so very far away, but it is getting closer. The edges of it are just disappearing beyond their view.

"When we shift course it follows us," says Spock. "When we go in reverse it speeds up. It is fast—sir, I cannot say how fast, because our instruments…"

Spock trails off.

There is simply nothing to do. Kirk asks Uhura to open two channels to anywhere: one for an SOS and a warning, and the other to try to speak with what is out there.

x

A year ago Kirk finds Uhura crying outside of the cafeteria. He tries to escort her to sickbay but instead they go to her room and she tells him everything.

The next time he sees Spock, Spock's spine protrudes from his back like a railway line, and trains of shivers crawl up and down across it. They are in engineering and they are supposed to be talking to Scotty but Scotty is not there yet and Kirk tries to say to Spock, "You never loved her?" but all that will come out is, "I'm sorry."

Even though Kirk is not sorry at all.

x

There is no reply to the SOS and the warning.

There is no reply to his attempt to communicate.

The ship is growing warm. Bones calls up to ask what's going on and Kirk does not want to explain, but it is his job to do so. He gets on the intercom. He tells them. He tells them that there is a creature made of fire chasing them down. He tells them that if they have any ideas they should speak to him.

They fire cold rockets into the thing's heart and they throw precious seconds away trying maneuvers that will not work.

Spock, his station useless, finally comes to stand by Kirk's chair, and it is when Kirk finally feels Spock's hand on his shoulder that he knows there is nothing left.

x

Two years ago he sees Spock sitting in a chair in a small, white lobby deep in the heart of Starfleet, while the _Enterprise_ is checking in at headquarters. He can only see the back of Spock's head but it strikes him how familiar the back of Spock's head is: the segmented curve of his pointed ears and the shadows their component, fleshy parts cast, the m-shaped hairline at the nape of his neck, precisely clipped, and the clockwise whorling of his black, black hair.

"Spock," he says a hundred and forty-seven seconds later, "Pike says he'll see us now."

x

The fire-being reaches them.

In the last moment, every crewmember is staring at the viewscreen, watching the approach. Warmth, ever greater, is sweeping across the _Enterprise_, billowing down the corridors, blowing like a great hot wind and bringing darts of deadly poison-heat in its stormy fists.

Kirk knows he has failed his crew but he also knows that no captain could overcome this. Not a being would blame him, because not a being could outrun this blazing beast.

Kirk tears his eyes away from death, determined to his very bones that he will do the right thing at the last, if he can. He turns to Spock, still at his side, and to his great shock and awe and pained, wonderful surprise, sees that Spock—his calm, stoic Spock—is looking at him, and it is the same look he has given Spock when Spock has not been watching for years now.

x

Three years ago he is standing in a garden with Spock and the garden is lush as a jungle.

Ivy drips across a long, crumbly wall, the type of limestone structure you see in old English estates, and there are small blue flowers like lights scattered in the five-pointed leaves. Trees, bright and dark all at once, with glowing viridian leaves and ashy brown-gray bark, texture the paths, paved with the same dripping stone as the wall. Little red-tinged shrubs line the rock, just half a foot high and perfectly angular, clipped into works of art that protect the flowers—the thousands of flowers that overflow up the trees and over the hedges and into the paths, where their various shining, shed petals luxuriate under-scented-foot. There is every shape here, from huge and spiking bright blue-orange-white, to flat purple leaves spread like legs, to thin, black-dotted sheets that curl around each other and then open nervously outwards, as if they are afraid of the sun.

In that verdant garden, Spock is the most beautiful thing Kirk can see.

x

He does not have to say anything. He stands and takes Spock's jaws in his hands and Spock moves forwards and awkwardly, across the arm of the captain's chair, they move their mouths together as the hands of the fire-beast reach through hull of the ship; they are saying all of the things that can never be said until the blaze eats them up, until all they each can feel is the texture of the other, until there all there is—is white and char and memory.

x

And four years ago Kirk was angry that what he had done was considered cheating. He was confused and he was hurt and he was determined to show them how smart he was. He was before of hundreds of his peers, and he was a red-suited cadet, and he was trying his hardest to save face.

He asked to see his accuser. A man, in black, descended the stairs. Kirk saw something familiar in the lank of his legs, and his stiff gate, and the clench in his hands when he tugged down his uniform shirt. But that memory was gone quickly and he was angry again, and later it would occur to him that Spock evoked a passion in him that was unparalleled.

x

It is a strong, bright place, the sun. Kirk sees fire from the inside. It is a fluid prism of fluttering edges. The world licks redly out, flickering into the void of space, heating the nothing around it—making the nothing something.

The sun is near him. He turns to see a figure that makes no sense. It is not human but it is alive and organic; it is not shaped like a breathing thing but it inhales hydrogen and spits out helium, like Kirk's lungs process oxygen into carbon dioxide. There are dark orbs at the center of it, black holes of a deepness heavier than the edge of the universe.

These dark things are the sun's eyes, Kirk realizes. They are looking at him, and in more ways than he can understand.

"Give me back my ship," Kirk says to the sun. He is nothing but determination, a flame as brave and hard as the sun's own fires.

"It took very much of my energy to save your ship from the fire-beast," the sun says to Kirk, its voice like a tube in his ear that goes straight to his brain. "You will have to help me."

"Yes," says Kirk hungrily, thinking of getting back to Spock, "anything—"

"You do not have very much to give," says the sun.

Kirk shows the sun what he has: he lays out his body before the sun's gasping eyes. The sun rifles through him. He can feel the light, scalding strokes of its gaze in his synapses.

The sun says, "I am sorry, but you have nothing I can use. This comes close." Its fingers point to the _Enterprise_, glowing like a brand even amongst the brazier that is Kirk's surroundings.

"I have more," says Kirk.

It is like ripping his soul away—it _is_ ripping his soul away. He splits a veil apart and there is Spock, the roaring, screaming whirlwind that is what Kirk has of Spock within him. For Kirk has more sweet memories of Spock than there are molecules in the _Enterprise_, and Kirk knows that if the sun, who has his ship, needs any fuel, then this is the place for it: this grand spread of love, this vast collection of every time Kirk has thought of or seen or heard or touched or sensed Spock.

"This is enough," says the sun, and it sounds impressed. "This could power the stars themselves, human. I am sorry to have to take it from you, but it is the only way I can give you your ship back."

Kirk says, and it is the strongest thing he will ever do, "Take it."

"Are you sure?" asks the sun, gathering its feathered arms around the stretch of memory.

"If the choice is the _Enterprise_ or Spock—do not think I love Spock less, but it must be the _Enterprise_," says Kirk. His lips are blistering with what he is saying. There is a choice here, but it is no choice at all.

"I am sorry to take this from you, human," the sun says again, and there is a _pain_ in his memories like ripping skin, and he feels the feelings falling from his brain, the images and scents of Spock, the angle of the curve of his eyebrows: gone, the quirk of his lip when he is amused: gone, the low note of his stormless voice: gone. Every memory ripped and stripped and eaten away, and all is white and char and—

_Reset_.

x

The fire-being reaches them.

In the last moment, every crewmember is staring at the viewscreen, watching the approach. Warmth, ever greater, is sweeping across the _Enterprise_, billowing down the corridors, blowing like a great hot wind and bringing darts of deadly poison-heat in its stormy fists.

Kirk knows he has failed his crew but he also knows that no captain could overcome this. Not a being would blame him, because not a being could outrun this blazing beast.

Not a being but for the sun, nearby, which hears the call of the _Enterprise_ and reaches out, lapping the ship into its heart. The fire-being screams, but it cannot defeat a sun. It lingers, hissing, and the sun flicks at it, irritated, until it mopes away, hunger still gnawing at its cavern-stomach. The sun watches it go and then looks to see what it has saved.

x

The fire-being reaches them and passes them. The ship is safe. The crew is safe. All are unharmed. All are breathing and laughing and happy to be alive.

There is a hand on Kirk's shoulder and Kirk stares at it. It is an unfamiliar hand. It is bony and green-tinged and Kirk follows it up a blue-sleeved arm and onto a shoulder, across a thin chest to a face, with hollowed cheeks and black eyes full of effulgence and noise. None of it means a thing to him. The sun has cauterized his memory's wounds. Kirk does not know that he is missing anything.

Spock, with the knowledge of the kiss still heavy on his lips, cannot understand when Kirk turns away from him without sparing him a glance.

There is no more of Spock inside of Kirk, because the sun took all of it. That was its price. Spock, hollow with sorrow, does not understand, and Kirk does not know what it is that he lacks.

But all are breathing and laughing and happy to be alive.

The sun burns brightly, like a staring eye.

x


End file.
